Advice Please - Parents & CM's do you choose a CM for home from home....

[atworknotworking]

care, I ask this because as I look around my house it doesn't really look like a house it's turned into a mini nursery, great for the kids and the parents seem to like it, but I am wondering if it will put of perspective parents I have read a few posts on here that Parents tend to pick CM's because they want their children to be in a home environment. My home doesn't really look like this anymore and I think I might have gone tooo much the other way, also I am due for an inspection in June 2010 and wonder what ofsted will make of it. Do any other CM's live in a nursery?

Your comments and sugestions will be much appreciated.

yes, and the individual attention from 1 person (not always 1-on-1 as she has other mindees, but always her iyswim).
I personally wouldn't be as interested in a mini-nursery.

My home looks like the home of a person with young children. There are toys in every corner of the living room and one wall of my kitchen is given over to the children's pictures. I have a craft cupboard in the kitchen but had this before I cm too as my own have always been into painting/sticking etc. There are the obvious safety gates and sockets covers etc. I do not plaster my walls in signs and posters, dh wouldn't let me even if i wanted to! So no my home doesn't look like a nursery at all just the home of a family with young children and as I have a 2 year old myself my house probably wouldn't look any different if i didn't cm. Only thing that would be different would be less toys probably but mostly they are all stored upstairs outside my working hours.

Mine currently is a cross between a community centre and a nursery. . Ofsted loved it, parents totally oblivious to it and mindees too young to care,sooooo have taken some stuff down today and feel like have some 'me'space back . it is easy to get carried away - especially when Ofsted due.

DP can't wait for me to go back to work so we can reclaim the rest of the house as ours. Biggest problem I find is having to have so many toys for children of all ages -normally would get rid of them as own children outgrow them but you can't when you do this job.

As a CM who's used cms in the past, it was more important that my DCs were happy and safe - I wasn't bothered about daily diaries, obs and assessments, learning journals etc as long as they came out smiling at the end of the day.

Oh how I long for those days back.....

My House looks like a nursery, and my garden looks like a playground, but It is still a home and I am still a CM, and after working both as a CM, and Nursery Nurse, I can still tell the difference, even if Ofsted would like us to b the same.

I havea playroom which used to be our dining room!!! that is set out as a mini nursery and have mindees work on the wall, posters, art cupboard e.t.c..
have fire guards that come off at night and get shoved into this room as well as the stair gate so de. kid the house every evening.
you underpaid, kids and most parents dont give a stuff about e.y.f.s.. just want to be happy and safe.. actually I dont really give a stuff about Ofsted either, if I get a satisfactory then thats fine cos I know I am outstanding at making my kids happy and thats all that matters..

well said the body ..

thank you Missymoo...

Thank you so much for all of your replies I just feel as though I may as well open a blummin nursery at the moment because my house is starting to look just like the one I worked in and I'm quite frankly fed up of having to get up at silly hours to do registers / invoicing / planning and all the rest, ths week I have 2 network meetings and a course on the evenings so I will be shoving mindees of as soon as I can and pegging it all the way across town to get there on time (some hope) back at after 9pm and up again at 6ish. No one I know who works in a nursery has to do all this they just turn up for work, look after the children get cover for paperwork time (often) then go home to do normal family type stuff. I love doing what I do (95% of the time) but felling a bit today.

So anyway I get the feeling most of you lovely minders live like me and you lovely parents don't care about much as long as DC's are happy which I agree should be the main thing. Can you all please tell Ofsted .

Have any of you been childminders then started a nursery?

totally agree and nursery workers also get paid on time and dont have to bloody ask..
I should be doing paperwork now but am on here... you do sound down atwork.. hugs..

hugs back atcha

No not down down, just grrr, to much when I have to spend so much family time doing work stuff. Had a nice day actually went to the seaside on the train, mindees had a lovely donkey ride on the beach, as I watched I thought bloody hell I havn't done a risk assessment for that , then I thought bollocks to it let them have some fun. Its a crazy crazy world

Grrr... The whole ofsted thing makes me mad. I chose a childminder for dd because i wanted consistency of care and stability - not blardy risk assessments and journals. Her CM has been brilliant and dd absolutely loves her. About a year ago CM consciously decided to do the bare minimum for ofsted - in fact she has just scraped a satisfactory. Do I care? No I don't. It matters that DD is happy and loves to go to her CM... that's all that counts. She'll have years and years of 'educational' and 'structured' environments - she doesn't need it from age 1-4 imho.

So I wouldn't worry about what ofsted think more than you have to - it's the childrens' view that counts.